Silent Hill: Cinder
by Anti-Mattering
Summary: A woman named Mona finds herself in the sleepy town of Silent Hill with no memory of how she got there. All she wants to do is go home.
1. Welcome

_Mona has arrived in town._

* * *

She'd been walking for a while, right? For some reason, she couldn't actually remember. She had some vague recollection of driving into town, though where she would have parked was a mystery. Did she even drive herself? Did someone drop her off? Her father, maybe?

No, not him. That would be absurd. The fog in her brain was only surpassed – dwarfed, even – by the fog flowing through the streets. She could barely even see her hand in front of her face, let alone any dangerous cracks or potholes she might be stepping into while walking down the street.

Traffic safety didn't seem to be that much of an issue all things considered. Anyone driving in these conditions would have just as much of a chance of hitting her whether she was in the middle of the road or on the sidewalk. Not that there seemed to be anyone else around. From time to time, it was almost like she could make out figures in the fog darting around just out of view, but she chalked it up to nothing more than her imagination.

No cell service, either, the device serving as little more than a glorified flashlight trying fruitlessly to cut out a narrow path through the mist. That wasn't too surprising given how old this place seemed, but it was no less disconcerting. This entire town seemed more like a model of a town left out in the rain for too long. Like a relic from ancient times unearthed and put on display in a museum no one ever visited. Either way, it didn't seem happy, though why she thought she could personify a town of all things was a mystery.

She remembered a street sign from earlier that identified this place as Bachman Road. A cafe, a burger joint, what looked like a flower shop; all abandoned with nothing much of interest to be seen through the glass. Though she felt a bit hungry after considering it for a moment, it was doubtful these shops had anything on the menu.

As she approached the intersection to what she'd come to learn was Matheson Street, the fog appeared to lift, at least along that stretch of road. Unlike the brief shadows from before, she could absolutely make out the shape of a man in the distance. As he looked to be walking away, she ran to try and catch up, calling out to him. "Hey! Hello! Wait!"

Like one would expect in this situation, the man did not stop. In fact, he must have continued on at such a pace as to seemingly disappear the moment he passed out of her line of sight. Trying to chase after him seemed useless.

"You're new here," said a voice from behind, causing her to jump nearly bad enough to fling the glasses right off her face. Whether it was the man from before or not couldn't really be known given how far away an obscured her initial viewing was. "That's interesting."

He walked around leisurely several feet away, almost seeming to circle her like a shark. While he didn't really give off much of a dangerous vibe, it was still hard to trust someone who appeared so suddenly in a place that was otherwise abandoned. Dressed normally in a white t-shirt and short sleeved black jacket, hands shoved into the pockets of some old jeans, he was the most normal thing about any of this, somehow making him decidedly less normal in the end.

"Introduction?" he asked, pulling one hand out of his pocket and raising it as if to gesture for her to speak. Upon closer examination, she noticed rows upon rows of dark blue tattoos against his brown skin. They covered almost every inch of his fingers, hands, arms, and even up his neck and into his hairline, the only place devoid of ink being his face.

He circled his hand, causing her to realize she'd been blankly staring off into space considering all of this for far longer than a person should. Clearing her throat, she finally stuttered out, "Mona. Murakami." After a pause, she repeated, "Mona Murakami."

The stranger didn't seem to react to this, merely observing her as he continued to walk. For some reason, he didn't seem to really be looking at her so much as through her. What he intended to find wasn't clear, though. "And you?" she finally asked to try and break the ice.

He stayed silent for several second, eventually saying, "This place is old." Whether he was dodging the question or simply didn't hear it asked was yet another mystery.

"I assumed," she said. Several more tense seconds passed, the two doing a kind of dance where the stranger would continue to walk in a circle around her as she turned to continue facing him. It was almost dizzying with the fog obscuring any kind of buildings or landmarks that would tell her which direction she actually faced. "What's it called?"

"Silent Hill," he replied promptly, looking her in the eyes for the first time since they'd met. "It was a resort once," he continued. "Now it's not. It's all gone." Rather than saddened by this, he seemed to smile. "You should consider turning back."

"I don't remember how I got here," she told him. "Can you show me the way out?" Why she thought he'd be able to do that, she couldn't tell you, but as the only face (friendly or otherwise) she'd met in this place so far, it was worth a shot.

Instead of a reply, he chuckled as if he found the notion absurd. "I think we'll see each other again soon," he said, ignoring her question entirely. "I think it's about to get warmer," he added out of nowhere, running his hands through his short cropped black hair. Was he commenting on her clothes? She was wearing a brown leather jacket, sure, but it wasn't like it was inappropriate attire. Just a blue tank top and white shorts under that. If worst came to worst, she could leave it behind.

Why was she so focused on that comment and her outfit? So focused, in fact, she'd spaced out again. When she finally came to, the stranger was gone. Now she was alone again in the unfamiliar place called Silent Hill. She should start looking for an exit.

* * *

One more thing for Halloween since you've all been good. This one might actually be a bit scary.

End notes will be sparse on this since I don't want to break immersion. Same with comments assuming there are any, though I'd really like to encourage people to freely speculate on how things are going to turn out as you read. I'd like to see where you think things are going.

I have no clue going in how long this will be or when I'll post chapters. Stick around if you're invested in it.

Thanks for reading. Always remember you're not alone.


	2. Shelter

_Mona tries to find shelter._

* * *

Mona pressed on deeper into the fog. As she continued down the street, it suddenly started to become harder to see. Reaching to her face, she wiped a finger across her lenses, finding them to be covered in condensation.

Cleaning them off on her shirt, she placed her glasses back on her face. They began to fog again almost immediately, some sort of heatwave having descended upon the town without warning.

It wasn't just her glasses, though. Everything was starting to feel hot. Hot and constricting. None of her clothes felt like they were fitting right anymore, even her hair seeming to cling strangely to her head and neck.

The more she walked the worse it became, coming to a point where she began to try the door to every building she could find to take shelter from this heat. None opened for her, though, either being locked or simply broken. To make matters worse, she started to feel as if she was being watched, a distinct possibility given how thick the fog was.

Wandering without any real objective or understanding of where she went, she finally came upon something to break up the monotony of buildings and streets. It was a roadblock at the intersection between Bradbury and Bachman, blocking her advance down the road. She couldn't quite make it out through the fog, but it almost looked like there was a sudden drop off just beyond the police tape.

Either way, the signs marked "Turn Back" were enough of a reason as any to try a different path. Going to the left, she continued her strategy of trying to forcefully enter different buildings as a deep sense of dread began to take hold. Whatever may have been following her felt much closer now and she had nothing to defend herself with.

This thought alone was odd to her. She'd never been a violent person, so to immediately come to the idea of fighting whatever it might be in the fog was kind of a shock. For all she knew, it could simply be a lost dog. Even if it was a stranger, what guarantee was there it would be a dangerous one?

Logic did tend to break down when fear came into the mix, but pondering this could wait. Against all odds, she finally found a door that was open. Scrambling inside, she immediately closed herself inside and clicked the lock before moving away from the windows. She couldn't place why, but she felt like she had to stay out of sight.

That wouldn't be too hard inside what seemed to be a home goods store, trading the oppressive fog for almost pitch darkness. She couldn't quite decide which was worse, but it was at least a touch less hot now.

She retrieved her phone from her pocket, turning on the flashlight feature and placing it into the breast pocket of her jacket. Reluctantly, she also chose to zip up her garment to try and keep the beam of light from wobbling all around, deciding it would be more beneficial to see than to be cool.

Her hope now was to find some kind of light switch and maybe a landline. Even if she didn't know exactly where this place was, she could at least call for help. The police could certainly trace her call if they had to.

The dated look of all the appliances in the store matched the rest of the town, a thick layer of dust giving the impression that nothing had been moved around or bought here since at least the 90's. Only one thing seemed to challenge that, the "thing" in question being the smell of gas beginning to spread through the store.

Not wanting to suffocate and die, Mona tracked the scent to its origin. Among a row of several other ovens, there was a white one sat near the middle with its door slightly ajar. It didn't look to even be powered let alone attached to a gas line, but she couldn't exactly doubt what she saw right in front of her.

Her natural reaction was to try and find a way to turn off the gas, but what she actually did was plant her feet firmly and stare at the thing like it was diseased. Her mouth started to feel dry, her body refusing to respond as she willed herself to go closer.

With a great amount of effort, she managed to force her hand towards the appliance, shaking visibly as she did. Touching the cold metal stove top sent chills down her spine despite how hot she still felt. Slowly she began to go over the machine to look for a way to turn it off.

Finding what looked like the right switch, she tried turning it. The gas could still be heard spraying out. She tried again. No result. She tried again after that. Still, nothing happened.

Almost in a trance, she repeatedly switch the stove on and off, listening to the switch click as it moved back and forth. Evidently, something went wrong after a time, a much louder click acting as a prelude to a spray of flames that sent her tumbling backwards onto the floor.

Something had made a spark inside the oven that was no engulfed in deep red flames. Again, she would normally attempt to find something like a fire extinguisher or a sprinkler system to activate in this situation, but her body simply wouldn't respond.

Transfixed by the flames, she could do nothing as they began to spread to the rest of the units. She screamed at herself inside her head to move or run or do anything in response, but she couldn't listen. Something was keeping here there, whether it be a force of this horrible place she'd landed in or something inside her own mind.

Suddenly, the door to the first oven broke off, falling to the ground with a thud. Despite the flames, it looked as if something was moving inside the machine. Just as she realized this, what looked to be a scaly, charred human arm emerged from the open oven, gripping the side of the burning appliance. A second emerged after that, both working to pull whatever had been crammed inside out into the world.

Needless to say, the fire was now the least of her worries.

* * *

Finally finished the second chapter. Not that anyone was really clamoring for it at this point, but maybe we can change that.

Thanks for reading. Tell your friends if you're enjoying. Always remember to turn your ovens off.


	3. Confrontation

Whatever had been possessing Mona earlier seemed to finally release its grip, her first action being to sprint as fast as she could behind cover. Ducking behind a couch several feet away, she watched as the creature managed to free itself from its improbable prison.

Its skin was blackened and cracked like it had been burning in that fire for some time, though still surprisingly pliable given the sheet of flesh connecting from its shoulders to fully envelop its head that barely outlined its facial features. It seemed to struggle against this covering like it was trapped, frequently sucking in the area around its mouth while choking and gasping for air.

Dragging itself along the ground by its splintered, singed fingers, its lower body seemed almost paralyzed assuming it had ever been useful at all. In place of true legs were two charred, fleshy sacks that seemed to pulse and shake independent of the rest of its body, the most brittle and scaly bits of flesh on them making an uncomfortable scraping noise as it moved.

If this monstrosity was ever human to begin with, it certainly wasn't anymore. All she was certain of was that she needed to leave this place as fast as possible. Mona had nothing on her person that could reasonably approximate a weapon. Even if she did, she wasn't particularly strong and never could defend herself very well. Escape was her only option.

She wasn't sure how that thing was navigating its surroundings, but it seemed to move with some sort of purpose despite the random quivering and spasming it was doing. It seemed at least a bit safe to assume that purpose was finding her. What it intended to do when it caught her wasn't nearly as important as a desire to not be caught in the first place, though.

Biding her time from her hiding place, Mona watched as the creature dragged itself down an aisle away from her. Slowly, she crept away from the couch, clutching her phone as tightly as she could in her hand to avoid accidentally shining it somewhere that could give away her position or, as a last act of desperation, to use to defend herself.

She approached the door. Taking one last look to confirm that the monster was still traveling away from her, her hand moved to the lock. Biting down on her bottom lip and steadying her shaking hand, she turned it. Except it didn't move.

Growing more desperate by the second, she continued to try and unlock the door, her anxiety building with each failed attempt. In a fit of desperation, she began to shake it, realizing at the first clatter of metal on metal that this was a terrible mistake.

Hearing an ear-splitting shriek from the back of the store, she took off in a different direction as fast as her feet could carry her. Despite the considerable distance between the two of them, she could hear the monster clawing its way to her position as if it was right behind her, though she couldn't muster up the courage to look back.

Passing the fire as she ran, the smoke stung her eyes. It only took a moment of wiping away the tears that formed to send her hurtling into a display of several wooden chairs. Her phone clattered to the ground and slid into the darkness as she fell, the only light source left in the vicinity being the inferno behind her.

Trying her best to scramble to her feet, she ignored the pain and bruises forming on her body as she climbed out of pile. Running didn't seem to be an option any longer, though, as the creature had caught up to her during her crash.

As she looked back, Mona thought she might truly die here. It was a thought that had only occurred to her once before in her life years ago. Among the terror it produced, an equally strong desire to keep living also appeared, both becoming stronger the closer that thing got to her.

Her body was almost moving on instinct, her hand gripping a broken chair leg as she pulled herself to her feet. Grabbing it with both hands until her knuckles turned white, she stood before the creature as it rapidly approached her.

Despite her shaking, despite the fear, and despite her own weakness, she did the only thing she could think to do in that situation and swung her weapon. It cracked against the side of the monster's head with a loud thud, leaving the thing stunned for a full second.

Then she hit it again in nearly the same spot, some kind of white fluid beginning to leak from the gash she'd left.

Then she did it again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.


	4. Survival

_Mona deals with having survived._

* * *

Despite having ceased moving several minutes ago, Mona continued to beat the monster's already flattened cranium into the concrete floor, the white fluid it used for blood splashing with each gruesome hit. She'd been so focused on making sure the thing stayed dead that she hadn't even realized she'd been screaming the entire time, only stopping after coming to her senses.

Backing away from the corpse, she felt like she was in another daze. This one was less like a guiding force moving her to where she was meant to be and more out of shock – shock at the fact something like this could exist and at the fact she'd murdered it with her own hands. Monster or not, she'd killed it. Death wasn't a foreign concept by this point in her life, but beating something to death with a piece of wood was entirely different from anything else.

Slowly, she collected herself, wiping her forehead with her sleeve and catching her breath, trembling the whole time. Collecting her phone from where it shown in the darkness, she slipped it back into her pocket before taking a seat near the fire. She refused to let go of the chair leg.

Another few minutes passed before she was able to slow her breathing, a combination of fear and adrenaline surging through her body and forcing her to become aware of every possible sound or movement in the building. Nothing else seemed to be there with her right now. She could always be wrong, though.

No sooner had she managed to catch her breath did she lose it again, coughing and fanning in front of her face as the smoke began to get to her. While the oven fire didn't seem to be spreading, it certainly wasn't burning down. She'd need to find a way out of this place soon before she passed out and asphyxiated.

Collecting herself, Mona began to move further into the store. Weapon clutched in her right hand, she took cautious steps away from the fire and into the dark unknown, jumping at anything that might be another of those creatures. Though her phone's light kept her from being entirely blind, it was far from perfect.

With a great deal of effort, she finally found her way into some sort of office. Papers were strewn about across the room, what looked to be faint bloodstains coating many of them. With any luck, whatever made them was already lying dead outside.

There didn't appear to be much of interest in the cramped space, though upon closer inspection, something small and shining caught her eye. It was a small pendant of sorts, a gold outer bezel holding what seemed to be a glass bauble. It looked to be a strange symbol of three circles enclosed inside a larger one, various cryptic runes and text strewn about within.

Though she had no reason to, Mona decided to pocket the thing. She had no idea what to expect in this place, so who knows what value it might hold down the line? Beyond this souvenir, though, nothing else of interest could be found here.

Exiting the office, she continued along the wall of the store in search of some kind of back door. Though it hadn't reached dangerous levels, it was quite clear the smoke was beginning to get a bit thicker. She couldn't afford to waste more time.

While a door didn't present itself, a hole most certainly did. Not to outside, but to the building next to this one. Taking a few cautious steps inward, Mona found herself inside a small shoe store. Similar to the previous location, things looked like they had been largely untouched for some time.

The thought of stealing a cute pair of shoes she saw on the wall tempted her for just a moment, but she ultimately had more important things to worry about right now. Trying the door, it was once again locked, though the view through the glass showed that the fog hadn't lifted whatsoever. If anything, it was much thicker now, though that might simply be the condensation that had collected from the humidity.

As she explored the store, she came upon a full length mirror near the middle of the room. Like most would, she took the chance to look herself over. Seeing herself covered in sweet, hair a mess, and the creature's white fluid coating the front of her jacket made all of this seem even more real than before.

Mona jumped back as the mirror suddenly cracked, a splintered line growing across her face's reflection. As it did, a loud storm siren began to play from somewhere outside, the store beginning to rumble and shake like it was caught in an earthquake.

The initial crack began to grow, the image in the mirror beginning to distort as the world around her started to fall apart. As shards of glass fell loose of their frame, it became clear that there was a path hidden behind them. It was less than inviting.

The siren grew louder the more of the mirror fell apart, blood beginning to drip down and obscure the view of the outside world through the windows and door while the shoes on display began to crumple and rot. A sickeningly warm, bleach-like stench beginning to fill the room, overpowering even the smoke to the point Mona thought she could vomit at any moment.

Finally, the sound stopped once the last piece of mirror broke against the floor, a small pathway having opened up into a distressingly bright corridor. Taking a few steps closer, she saw the cramped walls were seemingly constructed from rough stone, the floor being little more than flimsy metal fencing over an improbably raging fire.

While one would normally avoid such a deathly unsafe passageway as this, Mona didn't seem to have much of a choice. The door behind her was locked and, despite her earlier observation, the hole she'd entered through as well as the entire previous store was quickly being consumed with blindly white flames.

The stench from before and the heat of the flames made it impossible to stay put any longer. Against her better judgment, she made the decision to see where this path led. She didn't have to wait and see to know it wouldn't be anywhere good.

* * *

That pendant will be important later.

I got the idea for it from someone on the wiki, actually, which is no longer a circumcision nightmare. You can use it for stuff again.

Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember things can get worse.


	5. Remember

_Mona tries and fails to remember._

* * *

Just as Mona had expected, this path was turning out to be far worse than she could have ever imagined. Almost as soon as she'd made her way into the pathway, the shop behind her was engulfed in flames, no doubt to block her retreat. While accusing fire of having some sort of plan or consciousness might seem insane to the average person, she'd long since begun questioning the merits of sanity or rational thought after setting foot into this awful town.

Though the stench had lessened a bit, the heat certainly hadn't. It was worse than ever now, almost like she was the one inside the oven from before given the roaring fire beneath her. Maybe she'd just "lost" whatever game this place was playing with her, doomed to be cooked alive. Maybe that's what happened to the thing she'd fought before.

Mercifully, the grating beneath her feet gave way to actual flooring. Though it was no less sweltering inside these confined spaces, she was at least out of the path of direct heat. Stepping out onto what seemed to cracked linoleum, she took the chance to look around, expecting yet more danger.

Strangely, that wasn't the case. This place seemed like a mostly normal if a bit rundown kitchen. After all the buildup with the Hell Tunnel, it was almost anticlimactic to see just your average refrigerator, dish washer, dripping sink, and wooden cabinets like you'd see in any old house.

Certainly tempted to let down her guard, Mona resisted that urge, knowing something bad was just around the corner. This was somewhat confirmed given the fact the pathway she'd arrived in was now entirely gone, a collection of faded pictures stuck to a dirty white wall that had formed behind her. If their seeming age didn't make them entirely indecipherable, the burned bits and what looked like scribbling with a black crayon most certainly did. The clearest of the bunch was in the very middle, showcasing what might have been a family of four with all of their faces drawn over with dark smudges and scratches.

A new sense of dread began to overtake her. Something about this place seemed familiar, but she couldn't be sure if that was because she'd actually been here in the past or it was simply the town playing tricks on her again. Either way, she forced herself to focus on that picture again, trying desperately to wring any scrap of detail she could out of it that might reveal the answer to this mystery or even what the mystery itself might be.

As she felt a pair of hands wraps around the back of her neck, her body did the opposite of what she figured a normal reaction would be and held back any noise. She flipped around, finding that no one was actually there. Almost immediately after that, a blob of some kind of white fluid fell from the ceiling, landing on her shoulder with a disgusting splat.

While the original hands may not have been real, these certainly were. Reaching down from the ceiling directly overhead was another monster, either attached to or coming through the floor above and stretching its charred body far beyond what should have been naturally possible. Its arms were similarly elongated, hands featuring a series of far more than ten thin, constantly moving fingers moving towards her neck. In place of a head, there seemed to be nothing more than a protruding mouth, constantly undulating and biting with its numerous teeth, the fluid from before running out like saliva.

Mona clubbed one of the creature's hands in a panic, at least one finger breaking under the strike. Not wanting to stand around and try to fight another of these things, she sprinted from the room as quickly as she could, emerging into a steel cage surrounded by a wall of flames instead of the more predictable living room or the like.

The floor was hard steel covered in rust (she hoped it was rust, at least), nothing but fire to be seen around her in the still relatively small octagonal arena. Beyond the bounds and over the sound of crackling fire, grinding metal interspersed with quiet cries and whimpers was audible, though from where it originated was anyone's guess; she had no clue where she was right now, let alone anything else.

Out of the darkness of the kitchen emerged the creature she'd just escaped from, somehow stretching itself all this way to pursue her and moving around erratically. It would have been far less awful if it had simply detached itself from the ceiling to drag itself like the other, its disgusting body making a horrid rubbing sound against its own skin as it slowly but surely came towards her in the air.

As scary as the thing was, it at least didn't seem to be much of a threat given the pace of its attack. But if it really wanted a fight, she'd give it one. Mona grabbed her makeshift weapon with both hands, pulling it back over her shoulder to ready it like a bat for when the monster got into range.

That was her first mistake.

Like a bolt of lightning, the thing's mouth shot out of its own skin. A pink, fleshy tube came toward her at an alarming speed, biting deep into the meat of her shoulder with its rows upon rows of pointed teeth. Letting out a scream from both the initial bite and the stinging of the fluids inside its mouth against her wounds, she clumsily beat the thing as best she could to try and get it to let her go.

That was her second mistake.

Making little progress at clubbing the midsection of the mouth, Mona was too preoccupied to notice the rest of the thing catching up to her. Only when it was mere inches from her did she finally see its hands reach out for her neck. Its grip was like a vice, bearing down on her with the comparative force of an adult strangling a child and cutting off even her ability to scream.

It began to lift her into the air, her legs kicking wildly as she was pulled off the ground in a desperate attempt to do _something_ against this monster. Beating it across its body, she could feel herself beginning to lose consciousness as its fingers wrapped tighter and tighter around her throat.

In a last ditch attempt to free herself, Mona shoved the chair leg as hard as she could into the small amount of separation between the thing's skin and the fleshy mouth embedded into her shoulder. Letting out a scream, the monster's teeth finally came loose from her shoulder, the creature nearly flinging her into the fire pouring through the metal boundary at the edge of the area.

Doing her best to catch her breath close to the ground, she started to think about what she'd just learned. This one seemingly had skin too thick to hurt through conventional means, though fingers were fair game given how thin and fragile they seemed. The inside of its body was apparently its weak point, though, so that's what she had to aim for.

The monster began its slow pursuit once more as Mona scrambled to her feet, trying to move around the side of the arena to better control when she'd have to attack. Her hops of possibly retreating back to the kitchen were dashed, as was the possibility of using her superior maneuverability to get around. The reason behind why this thing had been moving in anything but a straight line was now clear, the stretched portion of its body having become an immovable barrier as it continually filled space.

Worst of all, she'd just purposefully run herself into a corner. With the monster closing in and the amount of space she had left rapidly decreasing, there was nothing left to do but fight. Watching the thing intently, she held up her weapon in straight out in front of her to be ready. Given how little room she had to move anymore, this was probably her only chance at this.

Seconds ticked by with painful slowness as the abomination grew closer and closer. Just as before, its mouth was the first thing to come at her. She was ready this time, letting her body react on instinct and aim the length of wood in her hands directly in the mouth of the chomping jaws.

Scoring a direct hit, the thing's protrusion tried to recoil as the chair leg was forced almost the entire way down its throat due to its own haste. The choking sounds it made were uncannily human, but Mona couldn't let that stop her from doing what had to be done.

As the body began to catch up to its mouth, she continue to force the weapon down its throat. Whatever had...constructed this beast had obviously not intended for it to be able to move in reverse, as it still tried to continue forward in the hopes of either removing the obstruction from its mouth or to kill its enemy.

Mona wasn't going to let that either of those things happen, though, twisting the rod in her hands and watch as more of the white fluid began to spray out like blood. The body's hands tried to stop her from doing any further damage, clawing at her jacket hard enough to tear the leather and cutting through the skin on her legs like razors, breaking many of its own fingers in the process with its urgency.

She ignored the pain and the fear and the heat and just kept going. With all her strength, she managed to force the chair leg the entire way into the creature's mouth, fluids puking from its mouth as it began to convulse. A final seize was all it had left inside it before the totality of its body went limp, its expansive midsection falling to the ground in a pile.

For a few seconds, everything was still. Even the fire hung eerily motionless in the room around her, all sound having ceased, as well. Then, from out of nowhere, Mona began to experience a splitting headache, the sound of a siren blaring in the background. As she crumpled to her knees in pain, her vision faded to red.

When she finally awoke, she found herself in a dirty, cramped bathroom, unsure of how she'd gotten there or what became of the place before. This was starting to become a rather normal sensation, though.

* * *

The Otherworld is not a friendly place, especially when a boss shows up. So much for a no damage run.

Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to search everything, including your memories.


	6. Recovery

_Mona tries to recover from the journey so far._

* * *

Seated on top of the toilet lid, Mona was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. Though she couldn't exactly relax especially after the loss of her only weapon, this place seemed to be at least a bit less immediately life threatening.

As the adrenaline began to wear off, the full brunt of exhaustion and pain started to set in. Despite this, she was smart enough to realize that walking around with a bunch of open wounds was probably a bad idea. Looking around the tiny space, about the only thing she could find to help her clean up was a mostly full roll of toilet paper hanging across from her.

A bit dusty but otherwise looking more or less sanitary, she wiped off some of the blood from her legs and pressed a wad of it against some of her cuts until they stopped actively bleeding. The more pressing matter would be her shoulder, though, given how deep the wound was.

She pulled off one arm of her jacket before gingerly sliding it down the other, using some of the toilet paper to clean off the mirror above the sink as best she could to take a look at things. Almost her entire arm was coated bright red, bite marks evident in the mangled flesh. Poking at it like a fool, she winced at even the slightest contact.

Twisting the handle, the pipes groaned a bit before sputtering out a few blasts of water, then settling into a slow stream. She let it run for a few second, noting that there wasn't any kind of odor and the water itself seemed clear enough. Splashing her hand through it, she concluded it seemed safe enough to use, wetting some of the paper to wipe off some of the blood.

Though her arm remained a bit rusty in color, she was at least in a bit better shape than before as slow as this whole process was taking. She searched the few drawers she could find below the sink, but the only thing of note was an old toothbrush she figured might be worth keeping. As such, her only real option to deal with her wounds right now was to fold up as many sheets of toilet paper as she could and slide them under the strap of her top, hoping they could at least slow the flow of blood before she passed out or got some kind of infection.

Noticing a bottle of hand soap beside the sink, she remembered something she'd seen in a video once. Squirting a dollop of soap onto some more toilet paper, she removed her glasses and rubbed it all over her lenses, leaving them to dry on top of the toilet as she cleaned some of the dried residue of whatever those creatures used for blood off her jacket. After a few minutes, she buffed the soap from her lenses before restoring her ability to see.

Though she was far from ready, she couldn't spend much more time in here. If something decided to attack her while in these cramped quarters while she had nothing to defend herself, that would certainly be the end of her.

Shoulder still aching, she opened the door to the bathroom, finding herself emerging onto the streets of Silent Hill once more. How that was possible wasn't exactly clear, but she'd learned to stop asking those kinds of questions. The good news was that her glasses trick seemed to be working, her glasses finally staying clear despite the humidity swirling around her.

Who would be waiting for her except for the man she met when first entering town. Now far less patient, she stomped over to him and demanded answers. "What's going on here?" she asked, not daring to take her eyes off him in case he pulled another disappearing act like last time.

Instead of a real reply, the man just smiled. "I'm surprised you made it," he said after a few moments, attempting to walk around her in circles only to be continually cut off by Mona not wanting to put up with his nonsense a second time. "Do you think it's working?"

"Stop talking like that!" she demanded. "I don't know what's happening. What are those things that keep trying to kill me? What's wrong with this town? Why won't you just give me answers?"

Everything she said seemed to amuse the man, a fact that only made her more upset. "You'll figure it out eventually. But I guess you've earned something." Without any warning, he reached behind him and pulled out a pistol, Mona stepping back fearfully. Spinning it in his hand to grab it by the barrel, he held it out to her. "You can probably find something like this in another place, but I'll just give it to you now."

She'd never even seen a gun before let alone held one. Even so, the utility of something like this couldn't be ignored in this place. Reluctantly, she took the weapon from him and looked it over to pretend like she knew what she was doing. Unsure of what to do with it after that, she continued to hold it in her right hand.

"I don't think I'll help you again," he told her, the mist growing thicker as he said this. "You're on your own from here on out."

"Wait!" she called out as he began to walk backwards, almost seeming to evaporate into the fog. "Who are you?" There was no response, the man having escaped just as quickly as he came in. Despite this, she felt like she somehow knew the answer, a name appearing in her head just a clearly as if he'd told her after all – Sable.

* * *

A fast update since I felt like getting things going again. Mona's probably in need of a health drink.

Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying so far. Always remember to practice trigger discipline.


	7. Medical

_Mona goes to the hospital._

* * *

Mona found herself in a bit of a predicament.

After her brief meeting with Sable, she'd gone wandering down what she managed to identify as Simmons Street. Though she wasn't aware of it, her exit from the bathroom had seemingly placed her into a totally different area of the town. Regardless, she had come to a point of acceptance for these kinds of things by now and wouldn't have really cared. Hardly a predicament or even an annoyance.

No, her predicament was the two creatures chasing her. They appeared to be similar to if not the same as the first she'd encountered. Foolishly, she'd already blasted through all ten bullets stored in her gun's magazine, missing with seven of them and only managing to strike glancing blows with the other three. Neither of her pursuers seemed too discouraged by that; if anything, the fact she now had nothing to defend herself with almost seemed to embolden them to move faster.

She hung a right down Koontz Street, still gripping her shoulder from the pain. In hindsight, that probably threw off her aim even worse than her inexperience, but there was no time to consider that kind of stuff now.

Sprinting down the street, she skidded to a halt after spotting a large building with a seemingly open courtyard. The sign outside declared that it was Alchemilla Hospital. Immediately, she ran towards it, figuring it to be both the perfect place to lose the monsters as well as hopefully find some medical supplies to better treat her wounds.

She moved through a gap in a metal fence, closing it behind her. There wasn't any lock (at least not one she could find in her panic), but a heavy barrier like this would at least slow them down, she hoped. More importantly, she had to find her way inside the hospital. At least in there she'd be out of sight.

Looking around the courtyard, things were still just as empty and desolate as the rest of the town appeared prior to the monsters. There was the possibility that this area might have been quite lovely at one point, but given that all the grass and even the trees here had apparently been burnt down to nothing, that point certainly wasn't now.

Finding the door, the stench of something burnt escaped into the outside. Mona held back of a cough, eyes watering as she crept inside and closed herself in. The atmosphere was musty and thick, whatever had apparently been set on fire in here never being allowed to air out prior to that very moment. Beyond that was the general chemical scent of hospital things, bleach featuring most prominent among the unpleasant odors.

Though rundown, this place at least seemed to be a normal building. The tiled floor was cracked and grimy to match the peeling paint and general disrepair of the rest of the waiting room. The remains of posters still hung on the walls above some damaged couches, their images long since faded and stained with smoky residue.

Rounding the corner, she started to notice just how loudly her footsteps echoed through the vacant halls. It was to be expected, but even so these seemed abnormally and uncomfortably loud, almost as if this place wanted to drive home just how truly alone she was here. At least for now.

The smell or scorch still hung heavy in the air, though it did seem to grow thicker as she continued forward. While following it might be her only option for advancing, her main concern was to find medical supplies.

Trying the first door she came across, it miraculously opened. Though the indicator had long since been broken off, it revealed itself to be some kind of examination room, complete with two bed frames where patients likely once rested. Whoever had once occupied those beds likely wasn't in good condition judging by the remnants of a veritable pool of blood near the center of the room, though.

Given the blood had long since dried, it was unlikely whatever happened here was recent. This emboldened Mona to thoroughly search the room top to bottom. Almost as a cruel joke, she found a single bullet tucked away in a cabinet. Cruel or not, she still needed it, clumsily popping it into her gun's magazine as quick as she could.

Through another door in the same room, she found a cramped little room with barren shelves and a single desk. Uncomfortably, the desk lamp was still lit. Checking through the shelves, she found a single bottle of pain pills. Ripping off the top, she found a pitiful one tablet waiting for her, the sadism of this place seemingly knowing no bounds.

Regardless, she dropped it into her mouth and chewed it to pieces before swallowing. Whether it would do any good or not, it was better than doing absolutely nothing to help the gaping wound on her shoulder.

What caught her eye after that was the desk. Sitting in the beam of light was a yellowed newspaper page. Approaching it to examine more closely, it was a story about some kind of house fire. A family of four was caught in an inferno, only the youngest child surviving and currently (relative to whenever this report was written) recovering in the hospital.

Just like the pictures from before, Mona had the distinct feeling she remembered this. Why did she remember it, though? More importantly, this didn't seem to have anything to do with Silent Hill, so why was this paper here in the first place? It was far too convenient for someone from who knows how long ago to have left this here just in time for her to find it.

Her head began to ache, feeling her own heartbeat behind her eyes as a dull thudding inside her skull. The stench of burning was growing stronger, too, though there wasn't any smoke or other indications a fire had been lit.

Leaving through a door inside the room, her head immediately snapped in the direction of the smell. It was almost overpowering now, but that didn't seem to matter. For some reason, she just continued down the hallway until finding a set of stairs leading to the basement. She was determined to find out what was causing this.

* * *

Finally finished. Following the layout of Alchemilla and making sure I got the details right by retracing the rooms through Silent Hill 1 was a lot of work. Certainly more than just going down streets.

Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to aim when you shoot.


	8. Fire

_Mona investigates the smell._

* * *

Each step downward left Mona feeling more and more uneasy, the burning smell growing stronger the closer she got to the basement. Opening up a heavy metal door, a rush of dark, smoky air hit her, causing her to choke. Even so, she continued forward.

It was hard to tell whether she was simply hearing her own heartbeat in her ears or if this gloomy space seemed to pulse with a life of its own. Turning to the right, she moved to the door opposite an out of order elevator and gripped the doorknob. Judging by the strength of the smell, this is where it was coming from.

Her hand shaking, she began to turn the knob, stopping at the last second when she spotted something on the ground out of the corner of her eye. To her surprise and, frankly, confusion, it was a red box of ammunition fit for her gun. Looking inside, there were only four bullets, but she couldn't really afford to be disappointed right now.

After clumsily reloading the magazine, she steeled her nerves and headed inside the room. The stench was almost overpowering at this point, barely making out the room through her watering eyes. It appeared to be a morgue, though there had apparently been some sort of fire given the soot coating the walls and ceiling in a thick black layer of filth.

The only exception to this seemed to be an empty body bag at the back of the room and three cold lockers side by side. Even just looking at them made her stomach turn. She had no idea why that was, but there was a very real possibility it would make her vomit if the smell didn't get to her first.

Either way, those lockers seemed to be what she was meant to look at, so the only way to advance was to forge ahead. The sooner she opened them up, the sooner she'd be able to get out of here. She'd be able to go back to searching for anything usable upstairs in peace.

Taking a few steps closer to the lockers, she felt herself dry heave, holding a hand over her mouth. Collecting herself, she continued ahead despite the dryness in her mouth and the pain in the pit of her gut. She had to see whatever was inside.

To her annoyance, she found that all three locker doors were locked. Figuring she'd have to go on a fruitless scavenger hunt throughout this place to find the keys, she did a quick turn around of the room, nothing useful to be found. She then had a positively ridiculous idea, pulling the toothbrush she'd grabbed from the bathroom out of her pocket and jamming it into one of the locks.

In an absolutely stunning display of unreality, it actually fit. Not simply crammed in there like one would expect, but as if the locker itself had been designed with the intention of opening with the plastic end of a toothbrush. Turning the brush in hand, she felt the door unlock, doing the same to the other two with a growing level of amazement and incredulity each time.

Returning the unexpectedly useful item to her pocket, she braced herself for whatever might be lurking within. Opening them one after the other, the only things inside where three body bags zipped tight, evidently with a single occupant each. Not that surprising, honestly.

Once the thought of unzipping one of them came into her head, though, everything started to go wrong. Without warning, she began to hyperventilate, stumbling backwards with her hands clasped tightly over her mouth and tears beginning to fall from her eyes. She was in no place to ask why she was having this reaction, though she wouldn't really have a good answer even if she was.

At the same time, she could hear the siren going off once more. Every locker in the room began to jostle and shake, turning from a scorched black to a brown rust, smoke and flame beginning to escape from around their edges. The tiles along the floor began to crack as well, each break pulsing red like blood running from cuts in the skin.

And then there was the empty body bag. It didn't seem to be so empty anymore, though. Its occupant – a strange, stark white creature that vaguely resembled the twisted visage of a little girl – rose from its position laying flat on the ground. A shrill scream escaped the vacant, black hole where its mouth would be, the creature bursting into flames a moment later and beginning to advance on Mona.

Scrambling to her feet, Mona tried the door. It was shut tight but with just enough give to make her think that maybe she could force it open. As the already unbearable heat continued to grow hotter as that thing came closer, she rammed the door with her good shoulder, just barely managing to break the mortise and fall through a second before the creature could touch her.

She tried to run for the door to upstairs but it was also closed, this one feeling a tad more secure than the last one. Though there were other doors in this area, she couldn't waste time trying to find one with the burning, screaming monster coming after her. Even if she did manage to get one of them open, it probably just led to a dead end.

All she could do was try to fight. Running as far as she could down the hall, the metal fencing that appeared under her feet flexing and bending precariously like it was threatening to drop her into the endless sea of flames burning beneath her, she drew her gun and focused it on the monster. It was easy enough to get a bead on it given the flames burning around its body acted like a huge, flashing target.

That didn't make it any easier to pull the trigger, though. Dangerous as it was, it still looked a lot like a child. A child that wailed and screamed, coming towards her in what almost looked like an attempt to find comfort. In the end, though, she had to survive.

Steadying her hands as much as possible, she fired a single shot toward the monster, striking it in the side of the face. Though it stumbled a bit, it didn't stop moving, the sounds it made now resembling something like crying. Appropriate given tears had long since begun streaming down Mona's face.

She fired once more, this time hitting it in the hand. The fingerless clump was blown off at the wrist, though this did little to actually stop it. It was around this point that she realized simply shooting without a plan wouldn't work, as she'd most definitely run out of bullets long before she could put that thing down for good.

Then she looked up. While the ceiling pulsed with red similar to the cracks in the floor before, at least one aspect of the old hospital had stayed in this alternate world – the sprinkler system. Though it didn't seem to be doing its job all that well right now, she could only hope that there was still something running through the pipes overhead.

Taking aim, she squeezed the trigger while ignoring the pain she felt moving her arm up at that angle. It struck the side of one of the sprinkler heads, though this didn't seem to work. With one bullet left, she tried again, watching the tiny bit of metal soar through the air as if it was in slow motion.

It was almost like she'd just witnessed a miracle occur right before her eyes. The bullet hit its target, breaking open the pipe right as the monster passed beneath it and raining blood down on top of it. It screamed and squealed as the fluid began to extinguish its flames, evidently causing it a great deal of pain.

Gun still held tightly between her hands, Mona slumped down against the wall, stress evaporating from her body. She may not be safe, but at least she overcame this hurdle. Any second now, that thing would fall to the ground and she'd be taken back to the world of fog and steam to continue her search.

But it didn't fall. It just stood there screaming as the blood continued to pour onto it. And then the blood stopped pouring once the pipe ran dry, leaving the creature still very much alive.

Though it remained stoic for a few seconds, it wasn't long before the screaming began again accompanied by the sound of hissing, boiling liquid. Seconds later, the creature burst into flames once more, continuing its walk towards Mona with what seemed to be even greater heat than before.

She wasted too much time just sitting there, she realized that now. Maybe if she'd taken the chance to attack it or look for another weapon she could have capitalized on her gamble, but she'd allowed herself to think she was in control. She was never in control here.

Her body refused to get up now, paralyzed with fear and weak from exertion and blood loss. Watching helplessly as the thing got closer and closer, she felt her skin begin to burn. It was like placing her face directly over a campfire and being pushed toward the flames against her will, some kind of cruel joke that was inevitably going to go wrong sooner rather than later.

"Sooner" came moments later as the monster was finally upon her. Mere inches from her body, she felt the hairs on her arms and legs begin to combust from simple proximity, fruitlessly shielding her face and body from the thing as it wailed in front of her. Next were her clothes, easily setting the hair on her head ablaze at the same time.

As she screamed, she couldn't help but notice that the two of them almost sounded alike now. This thought was fleeting, though, as it was quickly overtaken by indescribable fear and pain once the fluid inside her eyes began to boil and her tongue blistered and melted inside her mouth.

Fully on top of her now, she couldn't even make a sound as the thing began to force its way inside her mouth and down her throat, seemingly contorting its burning body in impossible and unnatural ways to fit inside. What it hoped to accomplish by doing this was unclear as Mona was long since dead by the time it reached its goal.

* * *

There's been a lot of fire in this place. I wonder what it could mean.

Things didn't turn out so good for Mona this chapter. I wonder where we go from here. She was pretty close to figuring something out, too.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to check your sprinklers.


	9. Return

_The story continues._

* * *

Mona awoke on a bench somewhere in the fog-covered streets of Silent Hill. Her hands immediately felt herself all over, memories of her immolation, asphyxiation, and numerous other injuries flooding back like the remnants of a nightmare she'd been shocked out of. Yet somehow she found herself to be perfectly fine.

While one's first instinct would be to assume they simply fell asleep somewhere and dreamed the events that led here, Mona had learned well not to fall into that kind of thinking by now. Besides, her empty gun and fog-less glasses were proof enough that whatever had happened to her was real. Real enough to have killed her, at least.

How she managed to survive was a mystery up until she felt something sharp in her pocket. Pulling out three pieces of the small trinket she'd picked up earlier, she noted how the symbol on its front had vanished. Though she couldn't even begin to explain it, she had to assume that it was somehow related to her miraculous escape.

Dropping the spent object's bits next to her, she sighed and placed her head in her hands. What was she going to do now? Would she have to go back to the hospital and fight that thing again? Where even was the hospital? Nothing in this area looked familiar. Even if she could find her way back, was she meant to get into a fist fight with a monster?

It was almost enough to make her cry, and if she wasn't afraid that might attract more of those creatures towards her, she just might have right there in the street. Whether she cried or not, though, she was no closer to figuring out why she was here or what this place wanted from her.

As she sat in despair, she caught a glimpse of something next to her feet. Initially pulling her legs up onto the bench in a panic thinking it to be a monster, closer examination revealed it was just a small brown package. Giving it a poke, it didn't seem to be immediately harmful. Still, that raised the question of where it had come from. Judging by the markings on the side facing up, it traveled through the postage system, but what kind of mailman would deliver to a place like this?

Putting aside this question for later, she placed the box next to her on the bench, slowly untying some twine around the outside. Tearing through the paper, she opened the box itself and found a collection of oddly familiar objects inside. She didn't particularly want to touch any of them given the thick layer of soot and char on their outsides, but she observed what looked like a rabbit doll, an empty picture frame, and a pair of essential oil bottles. Tansy and pennyroyal is what they appeared to be, but it was hard to decipher with the labels so burned and scarred.

While trying to decipher the meaning behind this box of junk, shaking it revealed a dirtied, folded piece of paper at the bottom. Doing her best to avoid touching as much of the burned things as possible, she lifted the paper out of the box with her fingertips and shook it open, knocking off as much of the blackened chips that had fallen onto it as possible.

Scrawled in bright red letters were the words, "It's all your fault." She didn't have the faintest idea as to what this could mean yet believed it immediately. If she tried to question that belief, she'd simply find herself facing a wall of her own creation that asserted without a doubt that she was the one at fault for all of this. Did that mean she deserved to be in this place? Maybe it would have been best if that thing had killed her before, though she doubted the town would have let her go that easily.

Tossing the note back into the box, she left it be and decided to take a walk. She seemed to be on Bradbury Street for what good knowing the names of places would do her. Walking east, she saw a variety of storefronts, windows fogged over and obscuring what might be inside. She didn't bother to try the doors, assuming they were either broken or that whatever was inside was probably not something she wanted to meet.

Next to one of these buildings was where she found another box of five bullets. Rather than relief, all she felt at this was more despair and exhaustion. If she was being armed, it probably meant something would be coming to kill her. Giving her just five bullets to deal with it was a cruel joke at best. She'd still take them, obviously, but the prospect of escaping Silent Hill seemed more and more far fetched the longer it toyed with her.

When it came time to turn north on Ellroy Street, Mona simply took a seat in front of a garage nearby. Hugging her knees to her chest, she took another moment to collect herself. Hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and fear weighed on her like a suit made of lead. The basic instinct for survival was quickly fading inside her, so oppressive was the atmosphere in this place both figuratively and literally.

What was the point of continuing on? To fight more monsters? To be assigned more blame for things she didn't remember or understand? To have more people talk to her without making sense? To die and come back just to do it all over again? If that's all she had to look forward to, maybe the only thing she needed to find was one bullet after all.

Like she'd thought before, though, Silent Hill wouldn't let her go that easily. She had to play its game whether she liked it or not. With no other options, she forced herself back to her feet to continue her journey with no destination in mind.

* * *

It's stressful when you have to face everything you've wanted to forget for so long. Even more stressful when you still don't want to let yourself remember it in the first place.

Limited saves are terrible in a video game, but they work pretty well for our purposes here. If you're a developer, though, please don't ever do this to your players. We hate you.

Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to save often.


	10. Quench

_Mona finally gets a drink._

* * *

Mona had already used four of her five new bullets taking out a monster since returning from the brink of her crisis. It was the same kind she'd encountered in the store from before, going down without much of a fuss despite the costly use of ammunition. On the plus side, she managed to finish the encounter without being injured save for a small bit of strain on her ankle from kicking it as much as she did once it was down.

The fact she only had a single bullet left brought back thoughts of suicide. Even so, she couldn't allow herself to indulge in that kind of pessimism again so quickly, forcing herself onward into whatever new nightmare awaited her. Nightmare or not, though, she was getting nowhere fast if she didn't have an idea of what she needed to do.

Odd as it was, maybe the monster from before was meant to corral her towards where the town wanted her to be next like when a team of them forced her into the hospital. Would being able to kill it the way she did mean she actually pulled one over on Silent Hill? No, that seemed impossible. That fleeting moment of optimism did her soul some good, though.

And then she saw him. "Sable!" she yelled, running as fast as she could to catch up to the elusive man before he could pull another disappearing act. Thankfully, he didn't try to escape, turning to face her with an almost smug smile as she approached, expression unchanging even after she pulled her gun on him.

"You look tired," he said as if he wasn't staring down the barrel of a loaded pistol.

"Tell me what's happening here right now," she demanded, trying to keep her hands steady. Though she hadn't killed anything reasonably human since getting to this place, she knew that she could if push came to shove.

"Here and now, you're pointing a gun at me for some reason," he said. "I don't know why you're doing that. It won't hurt me."

"You want to test that theory?" she said, voice quivering a bit.

This seemed to amuse him if the chuckle escaping his lips was in any way genuine. "There's no reason to waste your resources on me," he told her. "Come on, let me show you something." He held out his hand towards her.

Mona took a step back, keeping her gun focused on him. "What do you-"

"Take my hand," he told her. "So you can walk where I do." Though it took her a few moments of consideration, Mona did eventually do as he asked, something Sable seemed pleased about. Completely unafraid of the fact he was turning his back to someone who still had a will and means to kill him, he led her towards one of the buildings along the side of the road.

Opening the wooden door (already a strange design choice for what should be a place of business), he pulled her through into a dingy, broken apartment, the door shutting behind them before Mona could even check to see where it led after that. "Here we are," he said. "The Hillside Apartments have seen better days, but they're a home."

This description seemed like an understatement given the massive hole leading to the outside, part of the wall having entirely fallen out overlooking the street below. The rest of the room didn't seem to be in much better shape with scuffed, broken floorboards, peeling green wallpaper adorned with tacky yellow flowers, and a bed that looked to be in desperate need of a change of sheets.

What really caught Mona's eye, though, was the disgusting refrigerator, something green growing on the front of what was likely meant to be a white paint job once upon a time. This did little to stop her from flinging open the door, grabbing the first bottle of water she could find and immediately drinking all of it.

"It's safe enough," Sable said, though it was unlikely she even heard him. "When you're done here, you should probably take a look around. I think this is where you want to be."

Midway through another bottle, she paused in drinking to swallow, then asked, "How do you know?"

"I've got a way of...reading this place," he replied, predictably giving an answer that made no real sense. "Like I know what the town wants sometimes."

"You control this place?"

He laughed. "No, of course not. No one can control Silent Hill. Plenty have tried, but they're all dead now. I'm just along for the ride. I'm entertaining for it, I think." While it certainly seemed like the town could be sentient, Sable was now fully anthropomorphizing a collection of buildings. "Course, the fun ends if it ever gets tired of me. But I just have to make sure that doesn't happen."

"Am I part of that fun?" Mona asked, gripping her gun a bit more tightly.

"I didn't bring you here if that's what you really mean," he told her. "But, in a way, that's why I helped you before. It wouldn't be fun if you couldn't defend yourself." Sable cracked his neck, walking to stand at the edge of a hole leading outside, seemingly unconcerned with the prospect of a three floor fall to the asphalt below. "Anyway, I think I've done enough. I'll be watching, as always."

"Wait, where are-" Before Mona could even finish her sentence, Sable had already fallen backwards out of the room and seemingly to his death. Running over to the side, she stuck to the wall and looked out, straining to see through the fog to try and make out a body at the base of the apartments. While she couldn't know for certain until getting outside, her instincts told her he'd be back sooner or later.

Once again, Mona was now all by herself in Silent Hill. Still unable to understand why she was here, Sable's true intentions, or how those two things fit together, the only path that remained was forward.

* * *

Looks like Sable decided to be helpful again. I wonder if that's going to work out well in the long run.

These people teleport too much. Sometimes I wonder why I bother tracking them across the actual map of Silent Hill. At least that probably won't be an issue for a little while again.

That's all we have for now. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to drink questionable water you find in unmarked bottles.


	11. Downward

_Mona explores the apartments._

* * *

After Sable's disappearance, Mona was left on her own to explore the ruined apartments. Hardly something to look forward to, but she'd long since accepted that it was the only way she'd have a hope of getting out of here. For now, she just had to survive, her main priority being to try and find any useful supplies or weaponry.

Every square inch of the place looked as if it could collapse at any second, the constant sounds of shifting wood and shuffling feet both below and somehow above giving the distinct impression she wasn't alone here. She forced herself pretend that whatever else was living here hadn't noticed her for the time being, figuring it was at least slightly preferable to the idea that she was already being stalked through the narrow, rotting hallways. While there was little peace of mind to be found in Silent Hill, this was as close a substitute as she had.

Her search through the top floor was slow, cautiously trying each door she came across to find it locked, broken, or jammed. It was almost comical just how many of those she'd encountered since entering the town. She suspected that this wasn't just a coincidence, that maybe it was the nightmare guiding her to where it wanted her to go, especially when considered alongside the fact that parts of the building had completely collapsed to limit her path even further.

The only door she could find that would open was located at the end of a moldy corridor next to a broken window. With gun at the ready, she moved into the room slowly, almost jumping back upon seeing the charred corpse hunched over in a splintered kitchen chair directly across from her.

While nothing in the room could be said to be in pristine condition, none of it appeared burned. Did that mean someone had moved this body to this position after the fact? Why would they do that? Then again, there wasn't a clear purpose to much of anything in Silent Hill, so it was at least as plausible as any other explanation.

In the figure's hands was a gun not too dissimilar from her own, clutched between them as if at the ready. Though she doubted it was loaded, the thought of taking it did tempt her despite the obvious apprehension she felt at taking things off a corpse. Especially one that looked so human.

Her approach was slow, Mona nearly tiptoeing towards the body as if she was afraid it might wake up from any noise she made. The closer she got, the more the smell of charred flesh hit her. Holding back a gag, she made it within reach of the weapon, hesitant to grab it.

Slowly but surely, she was forced to overcome these feelings. Almost as if to punish her for it, the corpse actually did jerk to life, raising the weapon towards her with the intent to fire. She'd begun to expect things like this, though, using her last bullet to reflexively shoot through the side of the thing's head and send it falling to the ground.

Mona dropped her gun and backed a few steps away in horror. Though it was certainly startling for the thing to attack her like that, she was more surprised at her own quick reaction. When did she become so comfortable with killing, especially when it was something that looked so human?

The thing convulsed on the ground, burnt flesh crackling as it rolled around and clawed at the air. Just to be safe, Mona grabbed the chair it had been sitting on and smashed it over its head, only needing one strike to put it to rest. It was probably for the better, she thought.

Inspecting the gun after taking it from the ground, she found that it was loaded with a full magazine of nine bullets. Keeping it in her hand, she shoved her previous weapon into her pocket. If she found more ammunition, being able to switch between the two in the midst of an attack would likely save her life at some point.

Beyond this, though, there didn't seem to be much else of interest in the room. Similar to Sable's hangout, the place was in extreme disrepair with dirt and damage covering every surface imaginable. That being said, the lack of a giant hole in the side probably did make this the nicer place to live if one ignored the corpse laying on the ground.

Before she left, Mona decided to grab one of the chair legs that broke off when she bashed the corpse across the head. Given how helpful the last one had been, taking this with her seemed like a good way to conserve her ammunition going forward.

As she made her way into the stairwell to go down a floor, the smell of burning began to fill her nose. Never a good sign. Reaching the door leading to the second floor, she could see small wisps of black smoke coming from underneath it.

Considering whatever other ways down were blocked off and she wasn't too keen on taking a leap of faith, Mona had no choice but to go through. Thankfully, it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, this floor just as dingy and rundown as the other with the addition of several trash fires burning around the area. This wasn't good, of course, but given what fire usually signified in this place, she'd take it.

She began the process of searching once more, finding the majority of doors to be, shockingly, locked. One of them did open, nothing of value to be found in the cabinets or under the bed (not that there was an under after the springs and such had collapsed) save for a strange red key like you'd see used in a cheap movie to unlock a jail cell. The huge amount of nothing happening after nearly being shot just minutes ago was starting to get unnerving, whatever that meant.

As she left the room, Mona could swear she heard something over the sound of crackling flames and the creak of floorboards. Almost like someone crying. Someone young. Despite the building not being particularly large, it was hard to get a read on where it might be coming from, sounding equally near and far depending on where she stood.

It seemed like a trap. She'd only encountered one other person in this entire town so far so the chances that a real child was stuck somewhere didn't seem that high. Still, she couldn't just ignore it. She felt like a fool for even thinking it but she just didn't have it in her to abandon someone in need.

Mona couldn't decide whether it would be better if the voice did turn out to belong to a monster. On the one hand, she'd be fighting for her life, but on the other, it meant that she was the only one who had to suffer in this place. No one deserved to go through this, especially not a child.

Given that none of the other doors on this floor opened, not even the one that she strongly suspected was occupied by someone or something muttering to itself, her only choice was to go down another floor. As she began her descent, the crying did sound like it was getting louder, causing her to feel cold for the first time since she got to Silent Hill. Not simply a chill or nervousness, but genuine cold.

Stopping right in front of the worn wooden door, she tried to keep her breathing measured, realizing only now that she'd begun to hyperventilate like she was in a panic. She told herself that this would be just like the other floors. Maybe there would be something to fight here, but it wouldn't be any different. She'd make it through soon enough.

Hand closing around the doorknob, that was when she noticed the words etched into the door at eye level. "Welcome Home" it spelled out, the sense of dread permeating the air growing as thick as the fog outside.

She really didn't want to go through it, but she had no choice. She knew this already. She knew it before she even made it down this far. And yet her hand refused to turn, her legs refused to walk. She was frozen in place, heart racing as she read the words over and over again.

Her mind returned to the other set of words she'd seen throughout her journey, the message reminding her that it was her fault. Her fault that it had happened. Her fault she was here now. Her fault, her fault, her fault.

Whether it was a moment of clarity or mania, Mona finally found the strength to push through the door and arrive at the first floor. It was completely unlike the others, namely for the fact that it was a simple, dark box of a place with no rooms, no windows, and nothing but the hexagonal carpet and wallpaper in matching shades of red, orange, and brown to see. Nothing, that is, save for the man standing in the center underneath a single flickering light bulb.

It was him. It was unmistakably him. It couldn't be him, but here he was. Why was this happening? How was this happening? Why couldn't she just be allowed to forget in peace? She'd done so well in forgetting up until now, the memories refusing to surface no matter what the town threw at her. Now, though, it looked like it was done playing games.

Mona backed away, body shaking and hands tightening around the chair leg. She shook her head, refusing to believe what she saw right before her eyes. As much as she wanted to run from here, to run from the truth, that plan was rendered impossible the moment her back met smooth wall. It seemed as if the door had disappeared entirely, though she didn't turn to confirm it.

He stood unmoving, watching with what seemed like glee at her reactions. Lips twisted into a smile, broad salt and pepper mustache obscuring his top row of teeth as it always did. "Welcome home," he said sweetly.

What Mona felt now, however, was about as far from welcomed as possible.

* * *

Collecting weapons is a good strategy for getting through this place. I wonder if that key will mean anything later.

Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember that things eventually catch up to you.


	12. Papa

_Mona attends a family reunion._

* * *

"No, no, no," Mona repeated, slumping down against the wall and hugging against her knees. This couldn't possibly be happening, she thought. This couldn't be real.

He looked just like he did from her memories. Lanky frame, receding hairline, thick glasses, and the same dark, tweed sweater he always wore. It was like he'd walked right out of a photograph. Unlike a photograph, though, here he had form and weight and depth. Here he could touch her.

"I missed you," he said, watching with apparent glee as Mona looked more and more terrified by the second. "It's been so long since I got to see you."

This had to be some kind of trick. This man was dead. She knew that to be a fact. It was almost a decade and a half since that night. Everything burned, him included. It wasn't possible for him to be here now, but Silent Hill never did seem to be bound by the rules of possibility.

Slowly but surely, memories were finally resurfacing. The fire, her family, the hospital, the trouble; everything she'd worked so hard to repress or distort was slowly clicking into place. This did raise many more questions, however, chief among them being how so much of her life was being projected through this town.

Frankly, though, she didn't have time to be thinking on that right now. Not with her father standing right in front of her. As if to confirm her fears and realign her priorities, he took a step forward, Mona shouting, "No!" as she shrunk even further against the wall in a panic.

He laughed at this, complying out of what seemed to be a desire to torment her further and nothing more. "You were always so funny," he crooned in that mockingly sweet tone. "I don't know why you're acting like this. You know I'd never hurt you."

He was lying. He was always lying. He always hurt her. That's all he ever did. He'd pretend not to in front of everyone, but he always did. That's what he wanted to do now, just like always.

"You got so big while I was away," he said. "So beautiful, too. Just like your mother when she was young." He sighed, adding, "But it's not like I'm comparing. You know you'll always be my girl."

Breathing ragged and eyes wet, Mona did the only thing she could think to do and drew her gun. Painstakingly aiming towards his center mass, she held it between her shaking hands ready to fire if he took even one more step closer. The idea of ever fighting back against him was more terrifying than anything she'd experienced in this town so far, but she knew on some level there was no other option. She wouldn't let him do what he always did with her anymore or whatever else he might have in store for her now.

Predictably, he found this funny. "Oh, put that down," he told her. "We both know you won't use that. You can't shoot your papa. Your papa loves you, just like you love him. Now, put it down and we'll go have fun like-"

The shot cracked through the air, Mona's father stumbling back a few paces as the unexpectedly accurate bullet struck him in the center of the chest. It was a shock to the both of them that she actually managed to pull the trigger, let alone hit him given how much she was crying and trembling.

He barely had time for the smile to drop from his lips before she fired again. The entire magazine was unloaded into his body, the only thing louder than each blast from the gun being Mona's wailing. Each of the projectiles struck true, impacting him in the chest and arms and head before toppling him over onto the ground.

Empty as it was, Mona continued to pull the trigger over and over again, screaming something incoherent as she tried fruitlessly to shoot him even just one more time. If each of those bullets represented her hatred for him, she had plenty more to use. The hate only grew more intense as the full scope of everything he'd done to her started to come back.

It was like the fog inside her mind finally lifted, finally allowing her to process all ten years of living hell she had to endure. Every touch, every violation, every lie, and every strike came back to her, remembered with full clarity as if it all happened only days earlier.

Then came the trouble. All of his abuse finally caught up to him when the test came back positive. He forced her to choke down those awful extracts and it ended up with her in the hospital. Either way, it was a blessing in disguise given it meant she was out of the house when the oven caught fire. No one survived except for her. His life ending meant hers could finally begin.

And yet, here was now. The hell from before was now so much more literal. What was hell without the devil, though? Obviously, that's what he was here for. Thinking on that, would it really be that easy to beat the devil?

No, of course it wouldn't be that easy. It was never that easy. He was already standing back up. What's more, he didn't look happy. Almost entirely unfazed by the bloodless bullet holes scattered across him, he scowled towards Mona with the full weight of his contempt let loose. "I guess you still haven't learned."

Something began to happen with the light hanging in the center of the room. It flashed a few times on and off, then began to dim. As the shadows grew, Mona could see her father begin to twitch, his head twisting on its side more and more. Finally, a loud, grotesque crack rang through the small room as it turned itself upside down, his mouth hanging open as he did it.

He began to gasp and gurgle, falling to his knees as his throat expanded. The white fluid the other monsters bled began to pour from his mouth as he clawed into the ground. His arms seemed to extend as he did this, growing inhumanly spindly while his skin took on a dark, burnt quality. His stomach swelled, as well, his body positioning itself almost like a frog as he crouched low, no doubt preparing to charge Mona.

A dark, rusty piece of jagged metal ejected from his mouth, splattering the burning fluid across the floor before it retracted back into his throat, the weapon pumping in and out as he finally began a slow and menacing creep towards his victim. Moving on all fours like an animal, it would take him no time at all to cross the distance between them. With no more ammunition to defend herself, the best Mona could hope to do was fend him off with her chair leg.

She didn't have much hope of making it out of this one.

* * *

Mona's not having a good time at this family reunion. He's a truly vile man.

How is she going to make it out of this one? We'll have to find out next time. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember kill without warning.


	13. Run

_Mona tries to escape._

* * *

She had to run. It didn't matter where; she just had to run. Where could she, though? This room was sealed. The only way out had disappeared behind her. She was stuck now with no place to escape.

She thought so, at least. As her eyes darted around the room to frantically search for an exit and to avoid looking at the disgusting creature in front of her, Mona caught sight of what looked to be a hallway that had formed across from her. She had long since stopped wondering how something like that could happen, thoughts shifting to how she'd be able to make it past her father to reach it.

The scorching fluids splashed against the ground directly in front of her, smoke rising up off the floor where it made contact. He was too close to hesitate any longer. Almost as if her body moved on its own, Mona made a sprint for the left side of the room to try and dodge around the monster.

He had been moving slowly up to this point, filling her with the closest thing to confidence she could muster when thinking about this plan. And for once, this almost went off without a hitch. As she expected, the creature was too slow to pounce on her as she slipped by.

He did, however, have ample time to turn his head and stab at her with the metal protrusion, sticking it nearly all the way through the chair leg she raised to defend herself. As it was yanked from her hands, the fluids splattered against her coat, boring holes into the leather.

Scrambling around and keeping herself from tripping by the tips of her fingers, she sprinted for the darkened hallway. She barely registered the sound of the monster turning around to pursue her, senses shutting down in all but the most basic of ways from fear and adrenaline.

Following the hallway revealed it to be a sprawling maze of twists and turns. She had no idea which way to travel or what else could possibly be lurking down the path, running aimlessly as fast as her legs could carry her. All she knew for certain was that anything she found along the way would be preferable to standing around and waiting for her father to catch up to her.

She couldn't say exactly how long she'd been running, just that there seemed to be no end to this place. Not even a wall to hamper her process and force her to turn back yet despite how many branching paths she'd encountered. She could have been going for a few minutes or a few days for how little meaning time seemed to have now. Endlessly running just like always.

To make matters worse, she could still hear him coming for her. It didn't matter how much faster she knew she was or how far she'd gone, the sound of his limbs slapping the ground and the metal shooting from his throat always seemed to be right behind her. Something had to give eventually.

That something happened to be her legs, foot slipping out from under her as her gait grew more and more uneven and ragged to coincide with the exhaustion setting in across her body. Hitting the ground hard, she fell over herself several times before coming to a stop.

Her glasses had fallen off during the tumble, forcing her to reach wildly into the darkness to try and retrieve them before her pursuer finally caught up. Feeling around ever more urgently as the sounds grew closer, she eventually managed to slap her glasses further from her.

Crawling towards them, she finally encountered a dead end like she'd dreaded. What could she do now? Did she have time to retreat and find a new way? It's not like she was paying attention as she ran. Another path could be any distance away from her by now. Either way, the thought of running face first into the monster was paralyzing on its own, convincing her to stay here regardless of how foolish that seemed and reluctantly stand her ground.

Putting her lenses back on her face did reveal something of interest. In the center of the gray, stony wall was a gap. Just as dark as the rest of this maze, whatever it led to was impossible to determine. Despite this uncertainty, the now-deafening sounds of the monster approaching were enough of an argument to try and slip through.

At first, she found it impossibly tight. There was now way she could actually make it through. She had to, though. It was that or try to fight off her father without so much as a pillow or a locked bedroom door to keep him away.

She was forced to discard her jacket here, stuffing the guns she'd collected into the sides of her pants along with her phone and attempting to slide through the opening once more. Despite the scratches the rough pathway was no doubt leaving across her skin, she just barely managed to wedge herself inside and slowly shuffle her way deeper into the maze.

Like before, she had no way to know where this would take her. However, the sounds of the creature seemed to grow fainter the further she managed to go. That had to be a good sign, right? It had to be. She had to believe that it was. Anything would be better than facing him again.

As seemed to happen quite often around here, she was proven wrong almost immediately. Seeing the tiniest pinpricks of light at the end of the tunnel, Mona continued on with renewed vigor quickly enough to find herself falling through a white closet door.

Pulling herself up off the ground, the place where she'd come from had predictably vanished. All that was left was a white wall and several small dresses in a number of colors hung up above her. That was the first sign that something was very, very wrong here.

The next came as her mind focused itself on her surroundings. It was all as she remembered it being. There was the brown dresser that always seemed so towering, hefty gray television sitting atop it. There was the tiny bed in the corner with its abundance of pillows and sunflower yellow blankets. There was the tiny end table next to it, the small drawer attached no doubt containing all the secret treasures from the past shoved into the back. There was the door that opened into the rest of the house, golden knob set to the locked position for her safety.

This was her room. And that only meant one thing.

* * *

It's about time we got back to this. Mona must have been running for a long time while we were away.

It's a scary time of year for everyone, not just the people of Silent Hill. Stay safe out there.

Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to check your candy for drugs in case some benevolent stoner wants to chill with you.

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	14. Hide

_Mona explores the bedroom._

* * *

She was a child again. Was that literal? Metaphorical? Who could tell at this point. All she knew for certain was that everything seemed much bigger and scarier than when she first stumbled in here. This was her childhood bedroom, so it only stood to reason she would have to be a child to come back here. Something like that, at least.

Whatever rationalizing she could do had to be put on hold. If she was here, that only meant one thing. To confirm her fears, she heard a gentle knocking on her door. A lump formed in her throat, her body instinctively cowering away from the noise. "Mona, it's me," that familiar voice said with another few knocks. "I hope the door isn't locked. You know you're not allowed to do that."

She had to hide. Even if it did no good, she had to hide. Mona ran to her bed, pulling the tiny footstool she used to get in and out of it from underneath and dropping to her knees. She hesitated after that, realizing her mistake almost immediately.

She always hid under the bed. He always found her. She couldn't hide here if she wanted to survive. She had to find somewhere else. Somewhere safer. And quickly.

Another knock. "Come on, Mona. Open the door for papa. We're going to play that game before bedtime."

He'd get that door open soon enough. He always did. Eyes darting around the room, she tried to come up with a better hiding place. The closet? The gap may have closed but perhaps there was something she could scrunch behind.

Running towards it, a quick glance inside showed nothing of the sort. Outside of pulling some clothes off the hangers and hoping that a suspicious pile on the ground didn't draw his attention, there was nothing she could do on that front.

He was pounding against the door now. She was running out of time. What about the dresser, she though. Using all her strength, she pulled the bottom drawer open. Outside of a few folded pairs of pants, it was mostly empty. Maybe even big enough for her to fit inside.

Considering it as an option, she dismissed it after a few seconds. It seemed good on the surface, but the logistics of getting in there posed a number of issues. The largest of these was how she would manage to close herself inside.

The door began to flex and bend with each new strike against it. Mona was had to decide on something now. As her mind began to weigh the pros and cons of standing behind the door once it was opened, her eyes fell on the blue wooden toy box in the corner of the room. She'd forgotten it was even there, shoved next to the closet and out of sight when she first made it here.

Scrambling to the box, she opened the lid to see it half filled with various dolls and stuffed toys and costumes and other bits. Maybe this would work. Climbing inside, she shifted around the contents to make room. Stabbed all over by various bits of plastic, she closed the lid once she was far enough inside, then readjusted so as to cover herself fully underneath a thin black cape and a handful of princesses.

Then the door burst open. She heard it smash into the wall, likely blasting a hole in the material from how much force the blow held. After a few seconds pause, she could hear her father lumber inside. The sharp noise of the metal in his throat followed by the splattering of that disgusting fluid burned in her ears, barely letting her track his movements around the room with how deafening it seemed.

The clatter of metal and plastic told her he'd ripped down the hanging bar in the closet. A few seconds later, the little footstool impacted something else wooden, likely meaning he was checking under the bed.

He knocked over the table by her bed next, rummaging around the room for any sign of her. From the sound of things, he also pulled the dresser over and smashed it open. That only left one more place to look.

Holding her breath and trying to contain her tears, Mona curled into a ball and waited for what came next. The seconds ticked by slower than they had any right to, the hinge of the box's lid finally creaking open after what felt like years of suspense.

She could barely make out his form towering over her as he peered inside. As he stuck his hand inside to feel around, she hoped with all her might that she was just far enough down that he wouldn't touch her. Plastic clicked against itself while the tiny beads inside different toys squished back and forth, various bits of things tossed out of the box by the clumsy, hate-filled grasps.

From the way things moved around her, his hand was almost right on top of her. She could feel its weight pass over her several times, missing her by only a few centimeters at best. The wait to find out if she was caught was almost as agonizing as what she imagined he'd do to her once she was. She pleaded in her mind over and over for this to come to an end. She couldn't take much more of this.

Then he was gone. She felt his hand retract from the box before everything went quiet. At first, she thought maybe he was just toying with her; that he'd found her and was waiting for her to give herself away. Just one last trick to get her hopes up.

The longer she waited, the more convinced she was that he'd vanished. Summoning her courage, she slowly poked her head up from the toy box, taking care to make as little noise as physically possible. What she saw was the room just as it had been. Nothing appeared knocked over or destroyed and the only evidence that any of that had happened was the open door leading into darkness.

Most importantly, he wasn't there to catch her. Crawling out of the box, she flopped onto the ground. The stress of everything left her feeling weak and dizzy, tempted to climb into that bed and pass out. She couldn't leave herself vulnerable like that, though. She had to get up and move.

Pulling herself off the ground, she decided to do a more thorough search of the room after shutting the door. She would have locked it but it seemed to have broken. Of course.

Combing through the toy box seemed smart, a course of action that paid off in spades after her hand fell upon another box of ammunition. Ammunition she couldn't use. Once again, of course. Just something else to taunt her, like a person dying of thirst in the middle of the ocean.

However, something in her memory was beginning to awaken. Upon closer inspection, she realized this box contained shotgun shells. Ten of them, in fact. Her father had a gun like that, right? He had to. Even if he didn't, there couldn't just be random shells for something she'd never use laying around.

Going on that hope, she had to try and find the weapon. Shoving the shells into her pockets, she continued to explore the room. The dresser turned up nothing besides extra clothes that no longer fit her. The table was similar with just a lot of interesting pebbles and some paperclips inside, though she decided to bring a shiny bronze coin with her. Maybe it would have some use later.

Finally, she turned back to the toy box. She'd noticed it before but only now went to take it. It was a long plastic sword meant to be based on something like Excalibur. Not the most reliable of weapons but it would certainly be preferable to going at this unarmed. She also distinctly remembered how much it hurt to get hit by it, the manufacturers having constructed the blade of solid plastic rather than something hollow. At any rate, it would be a lot more effective than lugging around the TV.

Having found everything that seemed like it was worth taking, Mona prepared to head into the darkness once again.

* * *

Mona finally has a goal. What will she do if she came reach it?

Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to clean your room.

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	15. Maze

_Mona finds a hint as she explores the maze._

* * *

The sword was working remarkably well. Though she'd only encountered one creature so far – a small, wailing bit of cinder that crawled towards her on all fours – she'd been able to dispatch it in only three blows from the weapon and a kick to the head. It gave her some small measure of hope that maybe she could make it through this labyrinth and out the other side, momentarily ignoring what might be waiting for her if she did.

Even so, the path out was far from clear. The winding, random layout the maze took her down seemed to have no real plan to it, sending her off in multiple different directions that shouldn't be physically possible within the architecture of the building she came from or even in relation to each other. More than once, she'd come to a fork in the road, one path immediately leading her down a series of turns that would logically have her moving up the side she chose not to traverse, yet it only seemed to open up to new paths along the way.

And then there were the doors. They started off sparse with one or two every hundred or so feet (her estimate). As she continued forward, they became more and more numerous, some walls having upwards of ten in a row placed frame-to-frame against one another. Most were jammed or locked and wouldn't budge but others were a bit more charitable, at least in the sense that they opened. She didn't really want to talk about some of the things that she saw behind them.

But if she wanted to advance, she didn't have much choice in the matter but to keep trying the doors. That's what it was telling her to do, at least. Anything could be behind them whether that be some new horror or a valuable item she'd need later to finally escape from this place.

That said, the rooms still weren't pleasant. Slamming one shut as blood spurted from hundreds of tiny scrapes across her body, she ran with all her strength back down the way she'd come. She had initially ducked inside to hide from what sounded to be another creature pursuing her, regretting that decision almost immediately after the expansive darkness inside seemed to come to life just to menace her. It was as if millions of tiny hands began to grope at every inch of her body, raking like broken glass across exposed skin and ripping into her clothes.

What that may have actually been was impossible to discern given she didn't have a chance to look at it before the attack started. It didn't help that her jacket had to be left behind earlier, phone now shoved between her boobs and held in place by her bra and sheer force of will, an awkward and precarious situation to say the least. The more pronounced back and forth shifting of the camera light that this created while moving was both disorienting and annoying on top of all that.

Wiping a trickle of blood out of her eye, she clasped a hand to her mouth as she heard the unmistakable sound of her father moving towards her. She'd been lucky not to run into him up until now and was lucky still to not be boxed into a corner, though "lucky" was he furthest thing from her mind with him just around the corner. Right now, all she could think about was escape.

This meant yet another door. She didn't care. Back to the scraping hands, spiked walls coming to crush her, or even an army of monsters; so long as it got her away from him, that would be an improvement. She tried the first door to her right, turning the knob in every direction and pulling and pushing with all her might.

She tried one next to it after that with similar results. There had to be some escape, though. She couldn't be expected to fight him. She just had to run. Find somewhere to hide. Hope she wasn't found this time. But where was she going to hide?

Her salvation (if it could be called that) appeared as she was sprinting back down the path, a new door having appeared along the left wall. She thought that maybe she had simply missed it during either trip down this space before considering all of these doors looked to be the same, but she quickly pushed that thought aside once she noticed it did not, in fact, look like the others. Not only was this illuminated by some force, it was also twice the size of the rest of them in both height and width. In contrast to the dark wood of the others, this one was a gray metal, too.

Mona didn't have time to stop and catalog all the possible reasons for these differences with the sounds of stomping and metal protrusions gaining on her every second. Without even a second of hesitation, she gripped the knob and pushed her way through, shutting the thing behind her.

She expected to find nothing but further torment behind it, but that didn't happen this time. Paradoxically, that almost made things worse. Instead, she was simply greeted by another domestic scene, this one being a living room of what may or may not have been her childhood home. Memories were so jumbled and confusing at this point she could barely even tell who she was anymore.

Brown carpet, a brown couch, and a brown recliner all surrounding a brown wooden cabinet in which a clunky brown TV sat. She didn't remember her family liking so many brown things. Then again, maybe it was just a trick of the eyes in all this darkness or some fault with her recollection. There could be any number of explanations for why something was the way it was in Silent Hill. Trying to figure out why would just hurt your head.

At least for now, nothing seemed to be trying to kill her. There was no ominous images in the television screen, no multiple entrances to the room leading to pitch black death, and not even a vaguely unsettling element like a decapitated doll or burned out photos on the wall. This really did just seem to be a place to rest.

She took a few cautious steps further into the room, scanning the darkness as best she could for signs of danger. Again, she didn't see anything to worry about. Nothing was jumping out at her or trying to break down the door or materialize out of the shadows to grab at her. Frankly, she was starting to hope something like that would just hurry up and happen, the anticipation and worry that a completely safe room brought preventing her from relaxing even the slightest bit.

Anxiety or not, she'd been running and fearful for quite a while now. Exhaustion set in with this minor lull in the danger leading her to flop down onto the couch, placing the plastic sword along the cushions within reach. It wasn't a particularly comfortable seat but she wasn't feeling that picky at the moment.

With a tremendous sigh, her muscles finally unclenched a bit. That was when the pain started to set in. All the cuts that accumulated on her body stung worse than ever, the tiredness in the rest of her only making it all the more intense. If not for the ever-present sense of dread that hung over everything, she might have passed out then and there.

Taking her phone off her body, she shined the light around the room to try and get a clearer picture of her surroundings. This more thorough look at the place revealed it to be more a cheap facsimile of a living room than the real deal, the walls and ceiling the same stone as the rest of the maze. The furniture was also the only thing contained within the space, no other accessories or decorations to be found.

But then something caught her eye, the phone's light glinting off it for a split second as she passed over. With a great effort, she managed to pull herself up off the couch and approach the television cabinet. Inspecting the area around the TV, she found another of the little glass symbols like the one she'd picked up before.

Another backhanded gift from the town. It should bring some sense of security knowing that she could survive at least one encounter here, though that security was immediately undercut by the fact she'd have to die to take advantage of the charm. And as bad as dying was in general, the last thing she ever wanted to die to was her father.

She suppressed the urge to vomit as thoughts of what might happen to her body after that moment began to seep into her mind, pocketing the item. The moment she did, the TV sprung to life, Mona falling backwards from the shock.

Predictably, it displayed only static for the first few seconds, the image slowly turning to a picture of a darkened room complete with some kind of raised pedestal in the center. The picture was from a slightly raised angle, barely enough to see along the top of the pedestal and show a sort of indent or slot in the middle.

While it may be a leap of logic, her instinct was that she'd have to sheath the sword she'd been using as a weapon inside it like the Arthurian legend. That made some degree of sense (as much as anything made sense in this place), though she did have to question why this myth in particular was being referenced. Sure, she had empathized with the desire to realize she was secretly someone important and to be whisked away to a world of fantasy never to return to her horrible life ever again, but she had multiple pieces of pop culture to turn to for that. Why this one specifically?

In the time it took to contemplate this, something terrible had happened. Turning back to the couch, she could only look in open-mouthed horror at what was before her – nothing. That is to say, the sword was no longer where she'd left it, disappeared into thin air.

Where the hell could it have gone?

* * *

Call this a late Christmas gift. Mona's gift is that she gets to live for a little longer.

I wonder where the sword might have gone. Hopefully she'll recover it sooner rather than later. That's all we've got for now, though. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to look before you enter a room.


	16. Delivery

_Mona takes a walk._

* * *

How could it be gone? She looked away for a fucking second and a half. How could it just disappear?

She wasn't actually looking for an answer considering the only one she'd get would be that this town hated her. She just had to wonder why it chose to do this now. It showed her where she needed to go and what she needed to do – hard enough tasks as it were given all she'd encountered in this maze so far – but then removed half of that from the equation for no real reason. Nothing could ever be easy here. It was all just pain.

Mona pounded the sides of her head with her hands in her frustration, hoping the dull ache she began to feel would keep her from panicking or doing something reckless. Keeping her cool was the only way for her to survive. When she panicked, bad things happened. She learned that lesson well by now.

Collecting herself off the ground, Mona headed for the door. As bad as this situation was, it would probably just get worse the longer she stuck around in one location. This likely meant she'd be entering more doors, most likely ones that didn't lead somewhere as non-threatening as this. And now she didn't even have a weapon to defend herself with.

Despite being out of ammunition, she still gripped one of the guns she'd collected as she opened the door. Even if she couldn't use it to shoot, she might at least be able to bash something in the face. She didn't have much faith in being able to put something down like that but had at least enough confidence in her ability to stun it long enough to run.

It seemed like running was all she'd been doing since she first got down here. That or hiding. What choice did she have, though? She couldn't fight him. It didn't work when she was a little girl and it didn't work now as an adult. He was even stronger now. What could would standing up to him do her? This was all she could do to stay alive.

She was being lead somewhere again. That much was obvious after exiting the room and seeing that she'd somehow been transported to a narrow hallway leading to another door. It was so narrow she could barely fit out the door, scraping her shoulders on the rough stone as she was forced to sidestep out of there and continue on down the path.

The darkness meant she had no idea what was coming up in front of her, her light only reaching a few feet in front of her and revealing nothing besides more stone. Predictably, this meant a constant feeling of dread and worry permeated this entire journey, her ability to see behind her quickly disappearing as the route backwards was engulfed in shadows. The only thing she knew for sure was that this place seemed to be getting smaller, eventually forcing her to crouch down as she felt the ceiling scrape against the top of her head.

After what seemed like an eternity of traveling, she was finally forced onto her knees to crawl the rest of the way. To make matters even more uncomfortable, the passage had long ago turned from the solid stone to a soft, fleshy, sticky material. Some kind of slime seemed to be oozing from the walls, the urge to wretch coming back the more of it that clung to her body. Her disgust became so great that she was no longer able to tell whether the dull thumping came from her own heartbeat ringing in her ears or from the tunnel itself, so focused as she was on simply getting out of here as fast as possible.

Eventually, she finally did make it to the end. Piercing through the darkness was a bright light shining from an opening. Though she wasn't optimistic enough to consider it a good sign, she did note how the exit seemed to be even a little wider than the tunnel's constraints at this point. This made it easy for her to slide out on hands and knees.

She was quickly overcome with the urge to go back inside, hide away from wherever this place was. The place in question was some kind of nursery, possibly at a hospital. It was hard to tell given the general disrepair and fire damage covering every inch of the place. Beyond all of the grime, she could make out what appeared to be several rows of burned out cradles as well as the frames of some metal equipment in the corners of the dark room.

About the only thing that wasn't damage in some way was a large glass window looking out of the room; or, rather, into it as was likely intended. And that's just what the figures on the other side were doing. Mona couldn't make out who or what they were, only that there were at least two of them. She couldn't say more than "at least" given the way their shadowy forms seemed to shifted suggest there were multiple beings occupying the same space.

She also had no clue as to what they were doing. They were gesticulating and moving around on top of themselves and each other, seemingly shouting and arguing despite the lack of sound. Were they talking about her? The state of this place? Some other options based on what they might be seeing?

All of these considerations left her mind immediately as they started moving. No longer shifting around, both silhouettes formed into two neatly defined shadows, moving with alarming speed towards the door next to the window. It seemed to be the only way in or out of here barring the hole she'd emerged from, a fact that quickly filled her with dread.

They tried the door, shaking the knob and pounding. "I hope the door isn't locked," she heard in a breathy, echoed voice. It wasn't his voice but those were his words. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew. Was he here now? Did he find her despite all she did to run?

Disregarding her earlier behavior, panic overtook Mona as she sprinted around the room. She was desperate to find something – anything – she could use. There wasn't anything, though. Any kind of useful weapon or tool had evidently been burned up in the fire. No other exits to this place existed. All the while, the pounding grew louder, the door beginning to flex and bend around the lock.

The only way out was back. She realized that as she pushed past several of the cradles in her sprint towards the hole. But something was wrong. At some point, it had closed itself up. Not vanished completely, but squeezed closed like a sphincter.

A loud blow to the door broke part of the top hinge free. She was running out of time. If it wasn't open, she'd have to make it open. As awkward and disgusting as it seemed, she had no choice but to force her arm through the small amount of space left for the hole, pushing through what resistance it could offer.

Then the screaming started. It was shrill and loud and seemed to ring out from inside her own head. She had no way to tell if it was human or monstrous in nature, but the sound of it immediately forced her to pull away from the hole, freezing for a full second despite the continued scream and the pounding at the door.

She couldn't breathe. What had she done just now? Was it even a living thing? It had to be. She'd hurt it. She'd forced herself into it. It didn't want it. It was hurting. She hurt it.

Her vision blurred, her own screams of anguish drowning out the other screech. She couldn't breathe and her crying made her already compromised sight all the worse. Then her ears began to ring, balance going as she collapsed onto the floor.

The door may have burst open at that point. She couldn't tell or not. Maybe they never got in at all. Whatever happened next was going to happen whether she liked it or not, consciousness fading into darkness yet again.

* * *

This took a turn. Mona's walk through that hallway didn't turn out too well. She still has the save point, but let's hope she doesn't have to use it.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to keep your hands to yourself.


	17. Saw

_Mona finds herself in a precarious situation._

* * *

She didn't know how long she'd been out, just that it must have been quite a while given where she woke up. Mona jolted awake, shaking the table she'd been strapped to by her arms and legs. Though it was hard for her to focus through her panic, she was at least able to discern that this was some kind of operating theater, predictably grimy and burned like the rest of this hospital hell she'd ended up in.

Less predictable was the enormous circular saw hanging above her. It was an ugly, rusted thing with several teeth either chipped or missing, plus a thick layer of blood and viscera dried to the outer edge for good measure. Given the sticky feeling across her back, it hadn't been long since it was last used.

Then she heard the whispers. "Save it," they chanted, scratchy and dry as if the speakers had just inhaled a bunch of broken glass earlier. Just, "Save it," over and over again. She probably wasn't the "it" they were referring to here but figured that whatever "it" was would require her to die to be saved.

Then the saw started. It whirred to life with a sickeningly high-pitched whine, tossing a few bits of gore around the room as it first began moving. As her eyes turned up, she also caught a glimpse into what looked like an observation deck, seeing a group of the shadowy figures from before looking down on her. They might be the ones chanting, as well, but it was hard to tell given how sound moved in this place.

Screaming wouldn't do much besides waste air. It was hard to fight off the urge, but she managed for the sake of trying to approach things with as much sense as one could be expected to have in this situation. "Shit," she cursed between haggard breaths, struggling as hard as she could against the restraints. She gave up on her legs quickly, instead shifting focus to her right arm while using her other limbs to brace against the table and pull at the leather cuff with as much strength as she could generate.

It was no good. She just wasn't strong enough to rip through it even with how aged and damaged it was. Even if she was, lying prone on her back wasn't any position to generate the power she'd need to do it. Still, she kept trying. She couldn't give up after all this time. Especially not to die yet another gruesome death like this.

The saw crept ever closer from above, poised to slice down from the top of her stomach and bisect her like a gutted fish. With how slowly it moved, it wouldn't touch her for at least another minute or so. She guessed that was just for the sake of torturing her more, forcing her to watch for as long as possible while helpless and struggling to survive.

If this was the intent behind this design, it may have just backfired. A thought popped into her head, right arm ceasing its struggle and sliding down towards her pants pocket. Twisting as much as she could while strapped down, she tried to move her hip up to bridge the small amount of space between her fingertips and the pocket. It was a desperate and stupid gambit but quite possible the only hope she had of getting out of here.

Straining so hard she thought her shoulder might dislocate, Mona finally stretched enough to reach inside. Her fingers wildly flicked and fidgeted, barely grazing the top of the coin she'd collected before. Nudging it upwards just enough, she was able to get a good grip on it and slide it out onto the metal tabletop, finally taking it between her thumb and index finger.

Just as she'd remembered, the grooves around the edge were thick and rough. Drawing her arm up, she found a tear in the leather cuff, frantically sawing at it as best she could with her wrist bent over. Amazingly, it kind of seemed to be working, the ancient leather beginning to fray and break down against the coin's edge.

The chanting grew louder, The chanting grew louder, the figures sounding as desperate as they were angry. All she could do was saw ever more recklessly, the coin nearly slipping from her fingers a few times in her rush. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of stress and fear, the strap was weak enough to be ripped off. The leather crumpled and snapped with a disgusting popping sound after just one tug.

The saw was only a few inches from her at this point. She had to move fast. The first thing she could do was untie her left arm, fumbling with the buckle before managing to pull the strap loose. Next, she had to sit upright while sucking in her gut, whole body trembling as the wind generated by the blade rushed across her stomach.

Leaning around it, she barely reached the straps holding her legs, undoing each of them with seconds to spare. She was able to scoot herself off the other side of the table and fall to the ground in a heap, the saw finally coming down on where she would have been when this all started. While she managed to avoid falling onto her head, she still took a hard hit against the bloody stone floor.

Back throbbing with pain, she had to collect herself quickly as the observation deck's glass began to crack. The creatures watching her didn't seem to agree with her escape attempt. If they caught her, it was obvious what would happen.

Scanning the room, she saw a pair of double doors off to the right. Scrambling up, she sprinted towards them and smashed through with her shoulder. Thankfully, they weren't locked, or at least not locked well enough to keep her from getting to the other side.

What existed on the other side almost made her want to turn around and face those monsters.

* * *

This seems like anything but a romantic Valentine's Day for Mona. Maybe she'll meet a nice lady at some point and things will get better. I doubt it, though.

That's all we have for now. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to wash before surgery.


	18. Cut

_That went poorly._

* * *

Bursting through the door, Mona slipped on a puddle of sparkling water and fell on her face against the gray stone floor. That wasn't supposed to happen.

"Cut," Director Townshend spoke into a megaphone in his trademark deadpan, sighing from the chair across the room. Despite his less-than-expressive demeanor, it was always clear to the people on set how he was feeling. This being the 10th take on this scene, he was understandably a bit upset that something else had yet again gone wrong.

A bell rang, several people audibly groaning as they went to work resetting the operating room set for yet another crack at it. It was just one thing after another today, a pattern that held true through most of filming so far. Maybe the act of making a movie about Silent Hill was as cursed as the town itself.

Mona turned over on the ground and sat up, dazed from the throbbing pain in the center of her face. "Here," someone said, extending a hand to help her to her feet. It was Heather the stagehand, of course, still being the most organized and responsible person in this whole production despite being paid the least. "You hurt?"

"Seems fine," Mona said, taking her assistance and removing the prop glasses from her face. Nothing felt broken, at least as far as she could tell. She allowed herself to be led by the hand over to a black folding chair, sitting down and leaning back in case her nose decided to start bleeding. Didn't want to get blood on the costume in places it wasn't supposed to be.

"I'll go get some ice," Heather said, already heading off backstage. So dedicated. That's one of the reasons she'd always liked her since starting this job. That and the fact that she was...well, really cute.

From the corner of her eye, she saw the director approach. She shifted in her seat to face him, already knowing what he'd say. "Can you still do the scene?" Townshend asked, repeating what he'd said several times before when there had been an accident in the past. Nearly got him punched in the face when the actor playing Sable just about broke his leg doing that dive out of the apartment set.

"Yeah, give me a little bit," she sighed. While he certainly wasn't the worst person she'd met in Hollywood, he definitely wasn't the best. At least they were lucky enough not to have had any serious accidents on set yet, though she didn't expected he'd show any more sympathy than this when that time finally came. She was supposed to think "if" that time came, but she was just being realistic.

"Okay," he replied dryly, wandering off somewhere to go order some other people around. Beyond confirming that she could, in fact, continue acting, he was entirely uninterested in the health or safety of his lead.

Mona slouched down in the chair, laying her head against her hand as she contemplated how she'd gotten herself into all of this. "It's your big break!" her agent had said. "You've really hit the big time!" She was lured in the promise of no more underwear modeling or shitty commercial voice overs, but here she was really missing both of those now that they were three weeks behind schedule with yet another injury on set.

"Here you go." She jumped, Heather having snuck up on her. In her hand was a small plastic bag filled with ice cubes, all of it wrapped in a white towel.

Mona nodded, taking it from her and holding it to her nose. "Thank you," she said, voice growing nasally. "This movie, right?"

Heather's stoic visage broke just a bit as a tiny smile formed on her lips. "Yeah, it's something."

"How long have you been a stagehand?" she asked, hoping to pass the time and maybe learn a little something about her favorite member of the staff.

"Not that long," she replied. "Only about half a year. This is my first major thing. It was just some commercial that wrapped in about a week before this started."

Mona nodded. "But you didn't move out to California to get people like me some face ice, right?" She was just guessing at all of that, of course, though it seemed a safe bet. While she didn't think of herself as particularly smart of perceptive, Mona had a sense about people and could usually make out some basic details about a person without much trouble. Looking at Heather, her attitude, accent, and general demeanor didn't seem like a native to the Golden State. Maybe New England if she had to take a guess.

It shouldn't have been that surprising to hear someone call her out like that, but the revelation that she might have grander ambitions than doing errands for directors and moving props around being out in the open seemed to embarrass Heather. "I mean...yeah," she admitted, shifting on her heels. "It's just something to think about. Acting, I mean. But I guess I'm happy just working with movies and stuff."

Ah, _that_ line. Mona had said the same thing back when it didn't look like she'd ever get her chance in front of the camera. That was what you said when you were about to give up and go home. She'd better say something encouraging to her.

"Well, if you're even half as good in front of the camera as you are behind it, you're going to make it one of these days." Mona couldn't help but smile as she saw Heather try to hide a blush. Maybe that was actually the right thing to say for a change.

"I'm just...trying my best," Heather muttered, brushing some hair behind her ear and bashfully placing a hand on her arm. "But, uh, I should probably get back to it. Angela's resetting things right now and I think she needs help."

That was a good bet when it came to Angela. She sure did try to do her job, but trying rarely meant succeeding. "Sorry to hold you up," Mona told her, waving as Heather scampered off through the constructed hospital doors while avoiding the janitor mopping up the spill. If only she wasn't part of the crew. Tragic that they had to meet this way and not in a more neutral setting. Maybe something like a bar or in her bedroom.

No use thinking about what could have been, though. Maybe when filming wraps, but her main priority right now was finishing this shitty movie. Assuming it ever could get finished if the many accidents and several rewrites weren't a good indication of where this might be headed.

As if on queue, evidence of the complete lack of direction this project came waltzing by in the form of some other actor in an unconvincing gray alien costume walking what she could only assume was the director's dog. Absolute nonsense.

Mona sighed, standing up and dropping the ice in her seat. Exhausting as this was, she just had to buckle down and get through it. Better go find a mirror to see if she needed a touch up from the makeup department before they were ready for another take.

Still, that was a pretty cute dog. At least something good came out of all of this.

* * *

Look at me waiting a whole month to update so I can post the joke ending to the story on April 1.

Honestly, I've just been having issues right now with writing and life. It just happened to work out that I was able to squirt this out at an appropriate time of the year so I can pass my declining mental state off as a funny gag.

I'm talking more than I usually do in the notes for this mostly because I don't know when I'll be able to do anything else for any story and I wanted this pseudo-explanation out there where people might find it. Next update for this will at least get back to the actual story, though. This isn't some veiled way to end the story prematurely. Not supposed to be, at least.

That's all I've got for now. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to wash your hands. That isn't related to anything in this chapter, but enough of you still aren't fucking doing that and you're going to kill us all.


End file.
